Every life will have those moments when something so significant takes place that it indelibly marks your life forever. These events become the before and after point for everything else that follows. These marker events can be a divorce, assassination of a public figure, death of a love one or the time when a deadly disease came to visit.

These painful experiences are not supposed to define our lives. Our definition is supposed to come from what God was allowed to do in our hearts in the painful moments that take place between the before and after, when all hell was breaking loose. A new definition for our life waits within each tragedy to be called out in faith and spoken over our present circumstance and our future.

I learned this lesson so vividly years ago when a pastor’s wife had a mental break down while he was hundreds of miles away in another state.  On the long drive back home hell began painting horrible images of his future and the future his marriage.  He was taken to places in his mind where only dark resolutions lurked. Finally, he had enough and spoke out loud to these deceptive spirits and told them to be silent. He declared the words of hope God had spoken over his life, his marriage and his future. When he spoke the words of hope the atmosphere within his car was vacuumed of all the lies illegally hitching a ride with him back to his home.

When the pastor walked into his home and saw the condition of his wife he spoke again the same rebuke he spoke to the darkness that filled his car. The words of hope and promise broke the power of the lie that wanted to take up residence and fill their home with deception. It was as if a light had been turned on and sanity returned to his wife. In the months that followed loving friends and professional counselors helped the pastor’s wife learn how to reorder her life and continue walking in her new found freedom.

Some people allow painful events to become a destination. As a result, overwhelming pain and sorrow continues to walk with them for the rest of their lives causing them to live out a false destiny against the will of God. No matter where you are in your life-journey your life as a believer is always defined by resurrection.  Your life is always a rising, never a descent. When you face moments of tragedy your part in the victory will be to speak truth into the dark moments and call forth resurrection life.  That is your ultimate destination no matter where the events of your life may lead.

“But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines brighter and brighter until the full day.” Proverbs 4:18